


A Chance Encounter, Illustrated

by goseaward



Category: Lilywhite Boys Series - K. J. Charles, Society of Gentlemen - K. J. Charles
Genre: Crossover, Dominic Frey/Silas Mason (background), Friendship, Gen, Jerry Crozier/Alexander "Alec" Pyne-ffoulkes (background), M/M, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:27:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28283172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goseaward/pseuds/goseaward
Summary: "Ah, Dominic!" Sir Absalom said once the man was in earshot. "I wondered where you'd got to. Lord Alexander, this is Sir Dominic Frey. Dominic, this is Lord Alexander Pyne-ffoulkes.""Alec Pyne, the illustrator?" Sir Dominic asked, with sudden animation.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 67
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	A Chance Encounter, Illustrated

**Author's Note:**

  * For [celli](https://archiveofourown.org/users/celli/gifts).



> I went for the "tesseract" crossover option, and just moved Lilywhite Boys back a number of decades so the men could be contemporaneous. This also seems to have miraculously improved printing technology by several decades as well!
> 
> kayromantic provided an excellent beta for this work. Also, my thanks for offering services on the Yuletide beta list!

"Oh, Lord Alexander, look at you here in the corner by yourself!" gushed Lady Hertford. "How dreadfully bored you must be. Here, Sir Absalom, come speak to Lord Alexander."

Alec had rather been enjoying his solitude, to be honest. He put in some of these appearances now, because family unity helped George's family's position in society, and he looked well enough and had polite enough manners to do credit to his relatives. But he never really enjoyed them. He'd much rather be at home, with Jerry, or drawing, than doing any of this business. Still, he'd agreed to come, and so he supposed he ought to make the effort.

Lady Hertford left the two of them to speak. Sir Absalom was a portly man, much older than Alec himself, with thick dark hair and a professional air. His name sounded familiar, but Alec didn't place it until several exchanges into the conversation, when he said he was a lawyer.

"Oh!" Alec burst out. "You—uh." He stopped himself just in time from saying, _You're the chap that got the boy from Millay's acquitted._ The scandal was a few years old now, but very memorable.

"Yes, that was my case," Sir Absalom said with a small smile, perfectly understanding his meaning. "A real blow for justice, I feel."

"Oh, yes. I agree," Alec said.

"Do you."

If his recognition hadn't given him away, the blush he could feel creeping over his cheeks probably would. Still, if there was anyone safe at an event like this, a lawyer who'd taken that particular case would be the man. "What slanderous accusations they were," Alec said, and covered his embarrassment with a sip of his drink.

"Indeed. Do you know anyone else at this party, Lord Alexander? You seemed quite alone, before."

The question felt threatening to Alec, in other situations, but here it seemed driven merely by Sir Absalom's concern for his boredom, so he answered. "I know Lady Hertford, who introduced us. And her niece and her niece's husband. He was one of my school chums."

"Ah," Sir Absalom said. "I see he has been captured by the ladies."

"Yes," Alec said, ruefully. Most of the people at the party were older than he was. His old school friend was charming and utterly devoted to his wife, making a pleasant conversational companion for the young women avoiding the attention of the older men, but it meant that most of the people his age were engaged in a conversation he was not part of.

"A charming pair of young men, then," Sir Absalom said. Alec might have blushed at that compliment, but Jerry said such outrageous things to him on such a regular schedule that Alec was now inured to it.

"Do you have much acquaintance at the party yourself, Sir Absalom?"

"Oh, a tolerable amount," Sir Absalom said, with a smile. "One of them is coming towards us now, in fact." He nodded his head at the gentleman making his way across the room to them. He had salt-and-pepper hair, entirely grey at the temples, and a self-contained air. 

"Ah, Dominic!" Sir Absalom said once the man was in earshot. "I wondered where you'd got to. Lord Alexander, this is Sir Dominic Frey. Dominic, this is Lord Alexander Pyne-ffoulkes."

"Alec Pyne, the illustrator?" Sir Dominic asked, with sudden animation.

"Yes!" Alec said. He was quite pleased to be recognised, but also quite pleased with how Sir Dominic said it, as though Alec Pyne were the more important identity.

"I loved your most recent volume of fairy tales—there was a real character to the illustrations," Sir Dominic said warmly.

Alec was smiling a little more broadly than he was wont to do at a society event, but praise for his art always did that to him. "I'm very happy to hear you enjoyed them. I loved working on those volumes."

Sir Absalom, with an amused look, slipped away into the crowd. Alec met Sir Dominic's eyes and saw he had noticed as well; it was probably terribly rude of them to dive so deeply and immediately into such a narrow topic, but Alec couldn't feel unhappy about it.

"Do you do other work? I believe I understood you to also illustrate for _The Penny Magazine_?"

Alec nodded. "From time to time. Lately the book work has been occupying me more. I've just begun work on a compendium of Aesop's fables, in fact." The book jobs had been steady, even after his temporary fame had mostly dried up, and he was grateful for it.

"I very much look forward to seeing it," Sir Dominic said. "I have gained an appreciation lately for the way illustration enhances the experience of reading a book. Have you read the works of the poet William Blake?"

They engaged in perhaps ten minutes' conversation on illustration, which was simultaneously nowhere near enough time, and far more time than Alec would have guessed he would get to spend at a conversazione like this one. Sir Absalom finally drifted over to them again and made to steal Sir Dominic for his opinion on some political discussion.

Sir Dominic smiled. "I have a bookseller friend who introduced me to your works. He will be fascinated to learn I met you."

"I am, of course, happy to have my work promoted by a bookseller," Alec said, with a small grin, and Sir Dominic laughed.

On impulse, Alec found a card and handed it over. "I'd be happy to meet him as well, should he be interested. I very much enjoyed this conversation, thank you."

Sir Dominic's eyebrows went up, but he took the card. "As did I. Enjoy your evening, Lord Alexander."

***

Alec stood in front of the bookshop, staring in the window. It wasn't at all what he'd expected. For an acquaintance of Sir Dominic, he had expected a refined establishment catering to gentlemen of their class, with shelves full of Shakespeare and Dickens and fine leather bindings, and plenty of comfortable chairs for visiting gentry.

Instead, Theobald's was a cramped space, stuffed full of books mostly in boards. Oh, there were the leather-bound ones too: Alec noted a particularly fine Blake open on a table. But, as he should have expected from the neighbourhood, this was obviously a shop that catered to people more like Alec's fellows, with cheap books and even cheaper furniture. He wondered how Sir Dominic had come to be friends with the proprietor of this shop. He'd written that he would meet Alec here, but he hadn't arrived yet; Alec decided to go inside, rather than waiting out in the chill autumn air.

He pushed open the door and, at the sound of the bell, a stout man appeared from behind one of the shelves. "Good afternoon," he said.

"Good afternoon," Alec said. "I'm Alec Pyne, I—"

"Alec Pyne!" A broad grin broke across the man's blunt features. "Very pleased to meet you. Silas Mason."

"The shop is very nice," Alec said compulsively. He liked the crowded little space, books everywhere and a few well-used chairs. "I wasn't sure what to expect."

This was obviously the way to the man's heart; he looked pleased as he emerged fully. "Well, as you see. I specialise in political philosophy. But I've a fondness for illustration—" he gestured to the Blake, "—and I must say I have enjoyed your fairy stories. Have you done much else? I can't keep up as well as I'd like." At this longer speech, Alec could hear more of the rough edges in the man's voice: while the shop and the clothing spoke of a respectable tradesman, the accent still sounded like a man who'd likely had to claw his way up to that state.

"Those are my first books," Alec said. "I illustrate for the papers as well—that's steadier work. But I've some work coming out in the new year, and I'm working on a set of Aesop's fables now."

"I see." Mason dropped into one of the chairs scattered around the shop and gestured to another, so Alec sat as well. "Well, as I'm sure Frey told you, I'm happy to make introductions for you, if there's anyone I know that you don't. But I also asked you here because I write pamphlets in support of charitable education, and I want to hire you."

"Oh," Alec said. "What sort of scenes did you imagine for illustration?" He did not have a talent for harsher images, and he was unsure if Mason meant him to draw the life of the boys being educated, or the education itself.

"Well, you're the illustrator," Mason said. "You tell me."

Alec blinked at him. "I'd need to know what you're writing about, of course."

"Varies," Mason said. "Some of it's for the parents, to convince them to let a bunch of toffs have at their children. I could probably use you there, some of 'em aren't literate." Alec nodded. "Then there's the stuff for the toffs themselves. Bunch of nonsense but it brings the money in. Pretend that these are special children who deserve the opportunity, as if they ought to earn it, unlike the rich who make sure all their children get a hundred times as much." Mason raised his eyebrows at Alec, apparently deliberately not exempting Alec from this statement.

He couldn't disagree, in any case. "I could do something for the writing aimed at the poor, perhaps? Showing the children in the schoolroom, or whatever you write about? I imagine the others show something of their life beforehand, and I'm afraid I wouldn't be the artist for that."

"And I'll pay you a fair wage," Mason said. "It won't be as much work as the papers or your books, I'm sure."

"Yes, that's—" Alec cut himself off as Mason's head turned to the door. A moment later it opened, and Sir Dominic came in. The shoulders of his caped greatcoat were damp. Alec glanced out the window and saw that in the few minutes he'd been in the bookshop, it had started to rain heavily, a sound he'd noticed but disregarded.

"Good evening. Mr. Mason, Lord Alexander. My apologies for my late arrival, I was caught up at work." Sir Dominic was smiling in genuine pleasure as he hung his coat on the coat tree by the door and pulled up another chair.

Mason had raised his eyebrows at Alec at the greeting, and Alec said, "Mr. Pyne is fine, thank you."

"That's not something you hear every day," Mason said, with a look at Sir Dominic, who laughed. "We were just discussing my business proposition."

"Full frontal assault, no time to think, is it?"

"Oh, no, he was doing very well," Mason said. "Very definitive on what he would and wouldn't do. He said you would be," he said to Alec.

When Sir Dominic had called Mason a friend, it hadn't really occurred to Alec that he meant a good friend, an intimate, and not simply an acquaintance like one might have in a different class. It left him blinking a little at both of them, surprised, but not displeased: it was something like what he had with Jerry—not _very much_ like it, he imagined, but similar enough to be familiar, and also pleasant, like it was not so odd, being like they were. "Did he," he said, at length, with a small answering smile. "And on so short a meeting, too."

"As I said, a good negotiator. Are you interested in helping me out, Mr. Pyne?" Mason said the name with some little emphasis, for Sir Dominic's benefit, Alec thought.

"Of course, as my time allows," Alec said. He pulled a card from his pocket and handed it over. Mason accepted it with a nod. "So political philosophy is a...a passion, then?"

Sir Dominic looked extremely amused at this question, and Mason nodded. "A long-term interest, you might say. I'd be very happy to find some books for you, if you're interested."

"Oh—yes, of course," Alec said. He wasn't sure he did, but he could hardly turn the offer down, and Mason seemed quite interesting at the very least.

"Put something non-political in that list, would you?" Sir Dominic said. "Let's give the young man something a little easier to digest."

Mason nodded at this, and turned to Alec with a glint in his eye. "Have you read Samuel Pepys's diary, published this summer?"

"I have not," Alec said, watching with interest as Sir Dominic shot Mason an exasperated look. He was really much more relaxed here than he'd been at the party, Alec thought.

"It's extremely interesting, Lord So-and-so doing this and that. Wine and plays and increasing one's fortune while the poor die in the streets of the plague."

Alec blinked again at the bluntness of this, and decided not to add his thoughts to the conversation.

"It's a fascinating historical record," Sir Dominic argued. "Why, the eyewitness account of the Great Fire alone—"

"Yes, sending his gold and his wife out of the city, and not doing a thing to help the poor—or even his own clerk!"

Sir Dominic glanced at Alec with a reassuring smile, then turned back to Mason. "Surely it's important to know that this was the attitude of the people in the past?"

"It's not very different from the attitude of the wealthy now," Mason said. "Well, I'm not giving him Pepys. Why don't you help me pick out a couple of books for the lad?"

Alec was very much older than a lad, but then perhaps to Mason he wasn't. He watched as they moved around the crowded shelves, chatting, and then stared in his own astonishment when the cuff of Sir Dominic's sleeve fell back as he reached up and revealed a wide bruise in a ring all round his wrist. Alec had seen bruises like that before, not often, and he would never have guessed it of the kind, reserved Sir Dominic Frey.

After some more pleasant and extremely unusual conversation, he purchased the books and agreed to set a date with Sir Dominic for supper in the near future, and went home with much to think about.

***

"Sir Dominic Frey?" Jerry said. "You didn't tell me his name before."

"Yes, that's him," Alec said.

Jerry raised a hand and Alec hissed until he put it back in its former position. "Well, I'm not surprised," Jerry said, without moving. "He's famous for it."

"He hardly seems the type. Is it his wife who does it? And how do you know, anyway?"

Jerry guffawed with laughter, and Alec waited, pencil poised over the sketchbook, until he fell back into his former pose. His leg was in a slightly different position, but Alec forbore to tell him about it, as he would likely argue just for the sake of it. Jerry still looked good, of course, as he always did; Alec had him nude for this drawing and he was laid out on the bedclothes, long and lean and masculine, lit by candlelight along the edges of him. "It is certainly not his wife, which is how I know," Jerry said. "He's not married. He went to his knees for most of the bullies in London, a few years back, though."

Alec looked up at Jerry's face, startled. "Really?"

"Yes," Jerry said, with obvious pleasure at the gossip. Alec moved immediately to sketching the satisfied curl of his mouth before the expression changed; Jerry had a habit of pausing for effect, which he did now, just long enough for Alec to capture it. "There were more than a few people who thought he'd end up dead from it. He stopped, a few years ago, but I suppose he just found someone to do for him all the time, given the bruises you saw."

"Like you do for me," Alec said softly.

" _Not_ like I do for you," Jerry replied. "For one thing, as I heard it, he likes being hurt at least as much as he likes being told what to do. And for another, he can hardly be as tasty a morsel as you."

Alec flushed. "He's very handsome, in a dignified older gentleman sort of way. Not that I want to, of course," he added hastily. "For that matter, I have hardly any idea what we'd do together, if we both like, well." He was positively cherry red, he was sure.

"It's a pretty picture, to think of two men like you, trying to make it work, just waiting for someone like me to join you and give you what you need," Jerry said lazily. "Not that I have any intention of sharing you, of course."

"Of course," Alec said, smiling. "His bookseller friend is giving my name to another publisher, so something good has come of the acquaintance regardless. And he writes political pamphlets, so I agreed that he might call on me if there was something he needed illustrated that would fall within my usual topics."

"Mmm," Jerry said deeply. "But back on the other topic—"

"No," Alec said firmly.

"No?"

"I asked you to be perfectly still." Jerry in his life had never been perfectly still, but Alec lived in hope.

Jerry raised one mobile eyebrow. "I am not moving."

"Part of you is."

Realising what he meant, Jerry laughed loudly.

"And I do have plans for you once we're done," Alec said, drawing his eyes down Jerry's naked body, "but not _until_ we're done. So, I may have more illustration work coming my way, and his bookseller friend, Mason, is a very interesting man."

Jerry hummed again. "Just don't overwork yourself," he said. "I have plans for you, too."

"It likely wouldn't be for months yet," Alec protested.

"The list is very long," Jerry said, and grinned, eyebrows rising.

***

They met for dinner in a small club that Sir Dominic frequented. Alec had not been there before; it was too staid for him, and catered to an elderly clientele. A very Tory clientele, he thought, and found it interesting that a man who'd pick a club like this would also be friends, real friends, with a man like Silas Mason.

At first they engaged in some small talk, discussions of the weather and some not-very-controversial political events, and Sir Dominic gave him some opinions on the menu. The tables at the club were mostly booths, well-spaced and quiet, so that Alec could be sure they would not be greatly overheard; he wondered if that was a reason Sir Dominic had been attracted to this club in particular, if he was as Jerry had said. Alec deeply wished to know if he was, with a desire he had not known in himself before, to have somebody to talk with who would understand. Not just his taste for men—he had Jerry for that, and the men of the Jack and Knave—but rather his particular tastes. His need to let someone else take control.

How on Earth should he begin such a conversation?

"Is this club a particular favourite of yours?" he asked, for lack of something better to say.

"I frequent several places," Sir Dominic said, "but this is the one—ah. The one least likely to involve interruptions from my friends. We are rather an old and unfashionable set for such a young man," he said with a smile.

"Oh, I don't know," Alec said. "I've liked all the friends of yours I've met so far. Mr. Mason, and Sir Absalom, at Lady Hertford's."

"Sit Absalom?" Sir Dominic said, with some surprise. "That is, ah. He improves upon further acquaintance, and you only spoke to him briefly."

Alec respected this recovery, though he couldn't help smiling. "Well, I did not speak with him long, that's true. But his cases seemed very interesting."

"Oh," Sir Dominic said.

"I'd heard of him, of course," Alec said, wondering if this would be enough of a clue.

"Of course," Sir Dominic said. "In any case—I enjoy speaking with you, and would rather not be interrupted by a well-meaning extra conversationalist. Not all my friends are so interested in, well, books and publishing, and so forth."

Alec finally caught his meaning. "Oh! Well, I appreciate that, but don't worry, most men like that have not been quite so interested in me since I started going grey."

Sir Dominic, who had been raising his wine to his lips, paused for a long moment and put his glass back down. "Ah. Perhaps next time, then."

"I'm happy to meet wherever you'd like," Alec said hastily. "Wherever makes you comfortable."

"Well." Sir Dominic took up the glass again, and took a long drink. "As I said. I am from an old and unfashionable set." He smiled a little wryly. "And I am, perhaps, uncomfortable with things I ought not be uncomfortable with."

"No, no! I'm just a bull in a china shop with these things. I apologise." Alec debated saying the next thing, and then charged on. "I mentioned your name to, oh, my...particular friend, and he knows many more people, ah, like me than I do. So I had an idea you might understand already, you see."

Sir Dominic flattened a hand on the table, fingers spread, and Alec stared at it, confused. "Yes, Lord Alexander, the wine here is very fine."

"Oh...yes?" Alec said, and then the waiter appeared with their meals. He'd approached from behind Alec, but Sir Dominic had, thankfully, seen him coming. They both made the appropriate noises about the food until he'd left. "Thank you," he said then to Sir Dominic.

"This place is mostly quite private, which is one of the reasons I prefer it. However, there is the occasional interruption."

"Of course," Alec said. "Do you come here with your own particular friend, then? Since it's so private?"

Sir Dominic's face abruptly transformed, as though he were suppressing some great amusement, which he let through only as a tight but mirthful smile. "No," he said. "No, I don't think he'd appreciate it."

There was clearly a story there, and as clearly the story was one Sir Dominic was not prepared to tell him. "I will enjoy it on his behalf, then. This is very good," he said, gesturing to the turbot he'd ordered.

"I'm glad you're enjoying it," Sir Dominic said.

"There's one other thing," Alec said, before he could think better of it. "I think—maybe a discussion for another time, but I wanted to mention it now. Since you're already—ah, embarrassed, you see."

Sir Dominic's eyebrows raised. "All right."

"I mentioned your name to my friend because—at the bookshop, you had," Alec wrapped his fingers around one wrist, not daring to say it out loud, even in the privacy they had here.

Sir Dominic managed to look at once both deeply embarrassed and rather smug.

"And I don't, not exactly that, but there are things that are...similar. And I've never met anyone who also...ah...preferred things that way. Or, at least, that I knew about. So if at any time you would care to speak about it, I would be very pleased to speak about it with you."

Inclining his head, Sir Dominic said, "I will bear that in mind."

"And now we may talk about something more comfortable. I apologise for shocking you so intensely," Alec said, with a smile to indicate the jest.

"Ah, but what is the function of youth, except to shock your elders, so that in twenty years' time you may be shocked in your turn?" Sir Dominic raised his glass, a small gesture towards a toast. "But you are right. I am fortunate to have many friends who know of...that topic...and do not reject me, but I have many fewer who truly understand. But that is perhaps a conversation for a different club. Now tell me about your progress on your latest work, Lord Alexander. Have you found a reference for a heron?"

So Alec told him all about his work, and the conversation moved on from there, to other illustrated volumes of the last few years. It was a pleasant conversation, if not quite as soul-baring as the first few minutes had been, and Alec took himself off into the night well-pleased with his new friendship, and hopeful it might grow into something more.


End file.
